When approached by pimps and gangbangers, David is told to say: 'I came in alone and I'm leaving alone.'
He repeats the line and then writes it down in a spiral notebook being filled with instructions, such as sleeping with his head toward the toilet, not the bars. That way, someone reaching in can't do real damage.
David, not his real name, is upper-middle class and college-educated. He is also a criminal. He is being taught how to survive prison.
He is sitting on bar stools with his father, a retired professional, and his mother, an advocate for the homeless, at the kitchen counter of his lawyer's home. His parents are wearing stylish slacks and sweaters, and looks of pain and fear.
'Folks like you don't understand anything that is about to happen to you,' counselor Ray Hill tells the three. 'You're being sucked into this world, and this has been a scary trip for you. And the truth is, you don't have a hint.'
Mr. Hill works with defense lawyer William T. Habern, who began this instruction several years ago for a few clients without histories of arrest or violence. Now, other lawyers refer their clients.
Although state officials say they do an adequate job of introducing new inmates to the Texas prison system, Mr. Habern's program has no shortage of students.
The idea of the short course is to prepare soon-to-be inmates and their families on what to do, what to say and how to act in prison. It's not unlike State Department instruction to Americans going abroad, or to 'a frontier culture where survival is not a given,' as Mr. Hill says.
It is taught by those who have been there.
Mr. Hill served four years in the 1970s for commercial burglary. 
He is the producer and host of The Prison Show, weekly on KPFT-FM, a nonprofit listener-supported station in Houston.
Other instructors include a former corrections officer and former attorney for inmates.
The course lasts two days and costs $2,500.
As for David, he is an engineer who used the Internet to lure an underage girl into having sex with him. His instructors give him his first order upon leaving the courtroom – 'don't tell a soul.'
Mr. Hurt tells him not to make up another crime. He's an amateur, and the cons would find his lie in a heartbeat.
The next obstacle will come quickly. Within the first days of his arriving at prison, inmates will approach him menacingly and tell him he needs to join a gang or buy protection. They'll ask, 'Who you gonna ride with?'
If he looks frightened or hesitant, he will become human prey.
He must say firmly, 'I came in alone and I'm leaving alone,' his instructors tell him. They say because he's older than most inmates, he's less likely to be a target.